The Ex Hex (Ex Hex #1)(2)

Or, Vivi amended as she walked out of the bathroom to see Gwyn pouring a salt circle on the floor, they could do . . . whatever this was.

“What are you doing?” she asked, waving a hand toward the bathroom. After a second, her glass floated out, crazy straw bobbing, and Vivi closed her fingers around it before heading to Gwyn’s desk to pour herself another drink.

“We’re cursing this dickbag,” Gwyn replied with a grin.

“He wasn’t a dickbag,” Vivi said, chewing on the end of her straw and studying the circle. “Not at first. And to be fair, I was the one who called it off, not him.”

Snorting, Gwyn began gathering her hair up in a ponytail. “You called it off because he was a dickbag. He came to Graves Glen, seduced you, and all the while, his dad was back in Wales, arranging his marriage to some fancy witch. And he knew! And didn’t bother to tell you! No, dickbag ruling stands, so say we all.”

“‘We all’ meaning just you.”

“Me and Sir Purrcival,” Gwyn said, gesturing to the tiny black kitten currently curled up on her bed. At his name, he lifted his little head, blinking bright green-yellow eyes at Vivi before giving a tiny mew that did kind of sound like agreement.

And Rhys had been engaged. Well, almost engaged. He hadn’t used that word. He’d said “betrothed.” Just dropped it on her this morning while they’d been snuggled up in the warmth of his bed, him kissing her shoulder, and murmuring that he had to go back home for a week or so, get some things sorted.

“Some things” apparently meaning, “Tell my dad to call off my actual wedding to a stranger,” and then he’d had the nerve to be shocked that she was shocked, and actually, yes, they should definitely curse this dickbag.

“Fair enough,” Vivi said, folding her arms over her chest. “What do we do?”

“Open the windows,” Gwyn said, moving to her desk and picking up a candle in a glass holder that Vivi had somehow overlooked for her ritual bath.

Vivi did as she was told, the late September air cool and smelling like pine trees as it rushed in the room. Over the top of the nearest mountain, the moon shone full and white, and Vivi gave it a little drunken wave before sticking her head out the window to look up Elaine’s mountain.

Up there, somewhere in the darkness, was Rhys’s family home, the one he’d never even visited before this summer. It was dark now because Rhys was gone.

Gone.

Back to Wales and whatever life he’d lived there before coming to take summer classes at Penhaven College.

And they were over.

Her eyes stinging again, Vivi turned back to her cousin.

Gwyn sat just outside the circle, the candle now in the center, the flame flickering, and for a second, Vivi hesitated. Okay, so yes, Rhys had broken her heart. Yes, he hadn’t told her his father was in the process of finding him a wife. No discussion, no warning, no care for how she might’ve felt about the whole thing. One Hundred Percent Dickbag Moves.

But cursing?

And cursing while drunk?

Maybe that was a little bit much.

And then Gwyn closed her eyes, held her hands out and said, “Goddess, we beseech you that this man shall never again darken Vivi’s door nor her vagina.”

Vivi nearly choked on her drink, giggling even as the alcohol seared her sinuses, and flopped down on the opposite side of the circle from Gwyn.

“Goddess,” Vivi said, taking another sip, “we beseech you that he never again use his dimples for evil against unsuspecting maidens.”

“Nice one,” Gwyn said before adding, “Goddess, we beseech you to make sure his hair never does that thing again. You know the thing we mean.”

“She totally does.” Vivi nodded. “Goddess, we beseech you to make him the sort of man who will forever think the clitoris is exactly one-third of an inch away from where it actually is.”

“Diabolical, Vivi. Truly dark magic.”

Her head spinning, but her heart not feeling quite so piece-y, Vivi smiled and leaned over the circle, closer to the candle. “You broke my heart, Rhys Penhallow,” she said. “And we curse you. You and your whole stupid, hot line.”

The candle flame suddenly shot up high, startling Vivi so much that she knocked over her drink as she scrambled back, and from his spot on the bed, Sir Purrcival hissed, his back arching.

Gwyn leapt to her feet to pick him up, but before she could, both windows suddenly slammed shut, the drapes blowing back from the force.

Yelping, Vivi stood up, her foot smudging the salt circle, and when she turned to look back at the candle, its flame seemed to rise impossibly higher, taller than Gwyn, before abruptly extinguishing itself.

Everything was quiet and still then except for Sir Purrcival, still hissing and spitting as he backed up against Gwyn’s pillows, and Vivi wasn’t sure she’d ever sobered up so fast in her life.

“So that was . . . weird,” she ventured at last, and Gwyn walked over to the window, cautiously lifting it.

The frame slid up easily and stayed put, and when Gwyn turned back to Vivi, some of the color was returning to her face.

“You made the lights flicker earlier, remember? Probably just, like, a power surge. A magical one.”

“Can that happen?” Vivi asked, and Gwyn nodded, maybe a little too quickly.

“Sure. I mean . . . we were just goofing around. None of that was real curse magic. That candle came from Bath & Body Works, I think.”